As assessments of Audrey’s character went, this was depressingly fair. “Right now, I mainly want you to shut up.”
“And can you maintain that focus for a twenty-minute fuck session?”
Audrey glared up at her. “I can maintain it for aforty-minutefuck session.”
“Well, okay then,” said Jennifer Hallet. “Get in and get your pants off.”
She was bluffing. She was clearly bluffing. And Audrey always resented people for thinking they could bluff her. It was fairly dark in the carpark and there was no one around. So if, hypothetically, she wanted to whip her knickers off, just to prove the point, she totally could. She totally did. “All right.” She waved her cute-but-not-entirely-sexy stripy briefs in Jennifer’s direction. “They’re off.”
Jennifer glanced from Audrey to the pants and back to Audrey. “You’re a fucking madwoman.”
“This was your idea.”
“I said inside. Not in a field surrounded by bored techs who are professionally required to carry recording equipment.”
“Nobody is filming. All that’s happening here is that you’re stalling. Because you, Jennifer-Whatever-Your-Middle-Name-Is-Hallet, are all talk.”
Reaching down from the top step, Jennifer hooked her fingers around the strap of Audrey’s sundress. “Get the fuck in here.”
So Audrey got the fuck in, still holding her pants, still not entirely certain what was going on.
“Ground rules.” Jennifer kicked the door shut with her heel. “No conversation. No cuddling. No staying the night. No catching feelings. I get to keep your pants.”
“What? To hang on your dorm wall?”
“That was a joke, Lane.”
“Oh, so we’re allowed to do jokes then?”
“You’re allowed to do anything that’s not on the list.”
“Aren’t jokes,” asked Audrey, “technically conversation?”
Stalking from the cluttered office section of the trailer to the, if anything, more cluttered living area at the back, Jenniferfoompheddown a folding bed and thenfoomphedonto it. “I knew this was a mistake.”
Holding her own pants while Jennifer half-scowled, half-smouldered at her from a semi-supine position was throwing off Audrey’s game. She folded them neatly and left them on Jennifer’s desk. “AssumingI knew this was a mistakeis code forYou’re annoying me but I still want to do you,what’s your dream version of how this plays out?”
“You shut the fuck up and sit on my face.”
“You realise that mainly ensuresyoushut the fuck up.”
“Not if I do it properly.”
Audrey couldn’t quite tell who was winning here. Which meant she had two choices: leave now or go through with it and find out. “Okay,” she said. “Here I come. Ready or not.”
“New rule: no adorable bullshit.”
By now, Audrey was partially straddling Jennifer, who’d dropped to her elbows. It felt…unexpectedly dangerous, like trying to get a fork out of a food mixer. Except also quite a lot sexier. Because, beneath her, Jennifer was all heat and taut muscles and erotic hostility.
“I was keeping you informed,” Audrey explained. “Next time I’ll just slap my labia on your head.”
“Which part of shut the fuck up do you not understand?”
“The part”—Audrey crawled her way up Jennifer Hallet in dress-destroying, sheet-displacing tangle—“where you have any power to make me.”
“We’ll see about that sun—”
Truthfully, Audrey had positioned herself with more confidence than she was actually feeling. Because this was, undeniably, an exposing thing to be doing. Even if she was kind of in control of it. Then again, exposed and only slightly in controlwas a pretty good summary of her relationship with Jennifer Hallet in general. It was therefore slightly surprising when Jennifer’s hands slid up Audrey’s thighs, almost like she was cradling her. And that the first touches of her tongue were exploratory rather than aggressive, as if she was more interested in discovering what Audrey liked than shoving her towards orgasm to prove a point.
